The Length Of Your Fingers Correlates To Your Mental Well-being, Here’s How

We may have seen how ratio can influence things like the speed of your bike. Also, when you eat more vegetables than fat, this gives a positive ratio that is good for your development. To further emphasize the importance of ratios, scientists have now discovered that your mental health could also depend on ratios.

The ratio of your digits may be a good way to predict if you are likely to have serious mental disorders like schizophrenia. Digit ratio refers to the variation in length of index to your ring finger.

You have a high ratio if your index finger is greater in length than your ring finger. While you have a low ratio if it is your ring finger that has the greater length.

With that information, I am sure you are now trying to determine whether you have a high or low ratio. The research was carried out by some scientist who measured the fingers of a hundred schizophrenic men and also measured the finger length of another 100 who did not have schizophrenia. Then they went ahead to compare the length of the index fingers to that of the ring fingers of all their volunteers.

The importance of Digit Size

It was observed that the right hand digit ratio of people with schizophrenia was higher than the digit ratio of those without schizophrenia. It was also observed that those who had schizophrenia had lower digit ratio on the left hand compared to the “healthy” ones- the ring finger on their left hand was longer than the index finger on the same hand.

The author of the study, Dr. Taner Oznur later concluded that “Our results suggest that the finger-length ratio has a moderate predictive value for schizophrenia”. Taner was the MD of Gulhane Military Medical Faculty which is located in Ankara, Turkey.

How is it that there is a link between finger length and the chance of having mental disorders. This might be connected to hormones disturbances which can influence the brain development of a child in the womb. Studies have also shown that hormones can also influence the length or size of our fingers.

Fetal Development

Dr. Oznur believed that this research points to imbalances that can be traced to the third month of a baby in the womb. Unfortunately, it is difficult to investigate this during fetal development because of some ethical limitations, according to Dr. Oznur. He said that was why they chose the finger-length experiment as an indirect means to measure brain deformities at that early stage of pregnancy.

Some other studies have also suggested a link between finger length and mental strength. For example, the British Psychological societies conducted a small study which linked low index ratio to mental strength and sporting abilities in men.

The author of an interesting study, Dr Jim Golby who is the head of a sport and exercise research at the Teesside University, UK said in a statement that “It appears that high prenatal levels of testosterone may result in increased mental toughness, optimism, and hence aptitude toward sport, This provides tentative support for the conclusion that mental toughness may be partially biologically predetermined”

Looking at the credibility of the studies though, one would wonder why women were not included. One might also wonder what possible explanation could be given to the scores who have mental health issues that do not correlate to their finger ratio. Thankfully, experts have cautioned against taking the finger ratio too seriously.

A lot of Factors

A clinical psychologist, Dr Ben Michaelis who was not part of the finger length study had this to say: “Although I do think this research has potential for understanding the complexity of factors that go into the development of schizophrenia, it is just one potential factor among many and provides another clue for researchers to explore,”

Again, the under representation of women in this study also makes it seem less credible. The research leader, Dr. Oznur also pointed out that there is need for more research before the results of this study can be confirmed or discarded.